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Ukraine, poison, and oil

Doctors have “no doubt” that the mysterious illness of Ukrainian opposition leader and presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was caused by dioxin poisoning that was likely intentional.

Um, if you want to kill someone, why not just *kill* them, say, by using really nasty poison, not something slow acting like this. Or just use a gun. Also, how can doctors have “no doubt” the poisoning was intentional? Were they there when it happened? Are there no accidental ways for this to happen?

As is often the case in Ukraine, the coverage is one-sided and blurry.

Well, lookee here

The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite an exit poll indicating he won last month’s disputed runoff election.

U.S. officials say the activities don’t amount to interference in Ukraine’s election, as Russian President Vladimir Putin alleges, but are part of the $1 billion the State Department spends each year trying to build democracy worldwide.

If the Bushies really wanted to build democracy, they’d stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and not buy exit polls that give them the predetermined answer they want.

So what’s the deal in Ukraine? From the current home page of Progressive Review comes this illuminating map.

This map reveals more about the Ukrainian crisis than most American news coverage so far. It is culled from a larger Inogate map and shows the existing and proposed parts of the European-Central Asian pipeline and the importance of Ukraine.

And what is Inogate? The main coordinating body for developing such pipelines and attracting private investors. The name stands of Interstate Oil and Gas Transport to Europe. And where does one read about Inogate? Not in the American press. The only stories we could find searching Google’s news engine came from Azerbaijan and Turkey. So how would one contact Inogate? We suggest writing the technical secretariat. And where’s that? Kiev, Ukraine.

In the on-again/off-again poisoning story of Viktor Yushchenko, the verdict of the moment is dioxin poisoning, a condition which, it is reported, “usually results from occupational exposure to compounds in fungicides, insecticides and herbicides.”

Call me crazy, but that sounds more like “bad sushi” than a criminal conspiracy.